The present invention relates to a typewriter having an electronic dictionary device which is capable of displaying information associated with a word which is entered through suitable input means such as keys corresponding to letters used in a language. The information to be displayed includes one or more words which are synonymous with or antonymous to, or express in the same or another language the meaning of, the entered word.
An electronic dictionary is known, which uses a dictionary memory. Such a dictionary memory stores vocabulary data which consists of multiple blocks of word data representative of words of a language, e.g., English words. The vocabulary data are stored in a vocabulary storage section which comprises multiple word-data memory locations at which the respective word data are stored. Corresponding to the word-data memory locations, there are provided multiple related-data memory locations which constitute a related-data storage section. In each of the related-data memory locations, there is stored related data which represents information associated with the word stored in the corresponding word-data memory location. The associated information includes one or more synonyms or antonyms of the corresponding word, and/or a word or words which express in the same (e.g., English) or another language (e.g., Japanese) the meaning of the corresponding word. The word data are stored in the data memory locations from the first to the last addresses, so that the words represented by the respective word data are arranged in a predetermined order of presentation of letters used in the language. For example, English words are arranged in the alphabetical order as well known in the art of ordinary English dictionaries consisting of printed sheets of paper. Each block of word data is stored in the form of plural character codes which represent the respective letters of each word represented by the word data.
In such a known electronic dictionary, the required memory capacity of the vocabulary storage section of its dictionary memory is affected by the number of entry words to be listed in the dictionary, and by the number of letters of each word. Accordingly, the dictionary memory is required to have a larger memory capacity when the dictionary is required to contain a larger number of words. In other words, when the dictionary memory is relatively limited in memory capacity, the number of words that can be contained in the dictionary is accordingly limited.